I have 2 cats and my female is a long haired torty(like a calico in color). She always sits on one spot on my couch and when I sit down to play video games I notice these clumps of black, gray and light brown hair.

Today I pulled up a good bunch and I went to throw it away, just before I tossed it in the garbage I happened to look at my tying station and thought " this might make a good dubbing material "

so...

I sat down and tied up a couple nymphs with my cat's fur as the dubbing. They came out real nice!

When I was done I started to wonder if any of you have done or do this?

CAMBYSES I also have two cats, one of which is a long haired tortouse shell and she sheds like crazy so a while back I started using her hair for black and brown-black dubbing. It works really nice because she has some areas that are perfect for tying dry flies with a nice fine dubbing and no guard hairs, then she has other areas that make better nymph hair. She is basically a walking dubbing dispenser. I also have tied flies from my grey male short hair and his hair works well on some caddis patterns that I came up with, but he is skittish and I don't really want to torture him more than I usually do.

Also, one thing I found that works really well are their whiskers. I typically find one or two a week (due to fights) and they work well for mayfly tails on larger patterns or when tying extended body comparaduns.

Not sure that short stiff hair is going to be much good...most of the cat hair I've seen used has a consistency more like dubbing and is used as such...come to the jam... jack steele is always handing out portions of his kitty stash...

I'd be lying if I say I haven't thought of it. My parents have a dog that would make good dubbing, and I have looked at the area behind my cat's ears. I too have found wiskers, and was prepared to make quill bodies.

The best part is, my girlfriend doesn't have any probably with my pinching some dubbing straight from the cat.

However, I have never used the free stuff laying around the house, can't bring myself to do it.

And get a cheap little electric coffee grinder. Works great for chopping up the pet hair (as well as rabbit and such). I had even tried hampster when we had one...my wife still doesn't know about that one even though she caught fish with the little rodent.

The very first fly that I ever tied (20 years ago) was my personal imitation of a bumble bee. The hook was Eagle Claw bait holder with the little barbs on the shank (dried worm guts removed) and an off-set bend. The body consisted of on strand of black and one strand off yellow of my mom's acrylic crochet yarn wound around the hook, The tail and wings were course white Frita hair (my brown, white, and black mutt dog) I was very proud of that fly, even though I never used it. I had up until a few years ago when it mysteriously vanished from my old perrin fly box.